This study builds on the work of contemporary civic republicans, supplying a detailed analysis of the concept of domination absent in the familiar accounts of political freedom as non-domination.

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 46, Issue 4, Page 363-383, Fall 2018.

Republicans hold that people are dominated merely in virtue of others' having unconstrained abilities to frustrate their choices. They argue further that public officials may dominate citizens unless subject to popular control. Critics identify a dilemma. To maintain the possibility of popular control, republicans must attribute to the people an ability to control public officials merely in virtue of the possibility that they might coordinate their actions. But if the possibility of coordination suffices for attributing abilities to groups, then, even (...) in the best case, countless groups will be dominating because it will be possible for their members to coordinate their actions with the aim of frustrating others' choices. We argue the dilemma is apparent only. To make our argument, we present a novel interpretation of the republican concept of domination with the help of a game-theoretic model that clarifies the significance of collective action problems for republican theory. (shrink)

While the rule of law is surely a very important good, the familiar discussions found in the literature lead many to conclude that it is either a relatively trivial political ideal, or else a redundant one. What is needed is a new and persuasive defense of the rule of law that properly reflects its great significance for human well being. An important step towards building such an argument is to question a widely-shared but often unnoticed assumption that the rule of (...) law should be understood as a virtue of legal systems. The path is then cleared for a republican argument built on two theses: first, the thought that an ideal society would be one in which no one is the master of anyone else, and second, the thought that our freedom from domination is not natural or pre-institutional. (shrink)

Contemporary liberalism and republicanism present clearly distinct programs for domestic politics, but the same cannot be said when it comes to global politics: the burgeoning literature on global republicanism has reproduced the divide between cosmopolitan and associational views familiar from long-standing debates among liberal egalitarians. Should republicans be cosmopolitans? Despite presence of a range of views in the literature, there is an emerging consensus that the best answer is no. This paper aims to resist the emerging consensus, arguing that republicans (...) should be cosmopolitans. The considerations offered against cosmopolitanism generally rest on an incomplete understanding of the relationship between economic inequality or poverty on the one hand, and domination on the other. Insofar as republicans agree that promoting freedom from domination should be our central political aim, they should regard the reduction of economic inequality and poverty at home and abroad as equally pressing. (shrink)

When should burdened social practices be granted special accommodation? One issue of concern—raised by Okin and others—is that some social practices involve domination, and so the accommodation of those practices might (inadvertently, perhaps) support social injustice. Suppose one wants to take this concern very seriously. Starting from the assumption that freedom from domination is an especially important value, this article examines whether cultural accommodation would ever be advisable. Approaching the problem of multicultural accommodation from this point of view greatly clarifies (...) the debate and yields some interesting results. In particular, the discussion concludes that there are circumstances under which the goal of minimizing domination itself would be furthered by policies of special accommodation. (shrink)

Hart proposed that law is made possible by the practice among legal officials of observing conventional social rules, the most important being rules of recognition. This view has been dubbed the practice theory, and it has been attacked by many legal theorists. This paper argues that many criticisms of the practice theory fail because they misunderstand the nature of the organizational challenge to which rules of recognition are the solution. The challenge of constituting a legal system is essentially the challenge (...) of constituting a group agent, and when viewed through Pettit’s account of group agency, the practice theory can easily be defended. (shrink)

The rule of law is a valuable human achievement. It is valuable not only instrumentally, but also for its own sake as a significant aspect of social justice. Only in a society that enjoys the rule of law is it possible for people to regard one another as fellow free citizens; no one the master of anyone else. Nevertheless, the rule of law is poorly understood. In this book, Frank Lovett develops a rigorous conception of the rule of law that (...) is grounded in legal positivism, and offers a civic republican argument for its value in terms of freedom from domination. Bridging persistent methodological gaps that divide legal philosophy, social science, and political theory, Lovett demonstrates how insights from all three can be united in a single powerful theory. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the rule of law, including scholars, legal officials, and policy-makers. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 97-121, May 2022. Republicans hold that people are unfree if they are dominated, that is, if others have an insufficiently constrained ability to frustrate their choices. Since legislation can frustrate individuals’ choices, republicans believe that the design of legislative institutions has consequences for individual freedom. Some have argued that if legislative institutions are democratic, then they need not be sources of domination at all. We argue this view is incorrect: the introduction (...) of legislative authority, even if democratically organized, always creates a new site of domination. However, republicans can defend democratic procedures as the best means of minimizing the degree to which citizens are dominated, subject to the constraint of equalizing everyone’s freedom. We formulate and prove this claim within a simple model of legislative authority and domination. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in civic republicanism. In light of this revival, it is interesting to consider what sort of theory of legal or judicial adjudication such a doctrine—centered on the value of promoting freedom from domination—would recommend. After discussing the importance of such a theory and clarifying its relationship to broader questions of institutional design, it is argued that theories of adjudication should be assessed according to three criteria: first, their contribution to the (...) republican cause of promoting freedom from domination; second, their suitability to the characteristic features of legal systems; and third, their impact on long-run institutional stability. According to these criteria, a republican theory of adjudication would hold that judges and other legal officials should strive in their decisions and interpretations to maintain and enhance the distinctive value of the rule of law. (shrink)

In his paper, "The Right of the Guilty," Corey Brettschneider aims to develop and defend a theory of punishment within the framework of a liberal-contractarian conception of political legitimacy. My response argues that this attempt to extend the liberal-contractarian theory reveals, in a particularly clear and striking manner, deep and ultimately insurmountable conceptual difficulties for that theory.

Few passages in Hobbes’s writings have generated as much critical interest as the notorious reply to the fool – one who believes it is reasonable to renege on our promises whenever it is advantageous for us to do so. In his reply, Hobbes appears to argue that it is never reasonable to renege on our promises because doing so is never in our prudential interest. The problem is not only that this reply seems wrong, but further that it seems inconsistent (...) with Hobbes’s own philosophical commitments. This research note argues that the reply makes sense if we are willing to read it as an incompletely worked-out claim about the prudence of sometimes preventing oneself from being fully prudent in the future. (shrink)

Without question, power is one of the most thoroughly discussed concepts in political and social theory. One cannot, in a short review, hope to cover the sprawling, complex and often frustrating debate in its entirety. Instead, I will merely attempt to identify what seem to me the most important issues, and to present them in a way that reduces somewhat a few common confusions.

Alex Gourevitch’s From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth is a valuable contribution to republican historiography: in reconstructing the ideas of the 19th century American labour republicans, this work significantly expands and enriches our appreciation of the classical republican tradition. While the labour republicans are convincingly shown to have made important contributions to that tradition, stronger claims that they fundamentally transformed republicanism are less persuasive.